WHILST we have made pretty wide excursions in search of whatever is beautiful or impressive in town or country-whatever might interest the lover of Nature, the curious in antiquity, or the inquirer into commercial or manufacturing greatness or prosperity; wandering to the extremest north, and south, and east of England, and extending our researches even into Scotland and Wales, the distant west has been almost wholly neglected by us. Neither Cornwall nor Devonshire, though both counties are full of attractions, has contributed a leaf to our Sketch-book.

verify the passage, nor add the weight that his name would doubtless give: but

"Well fare his heart that book that wrote,"

say we. He has said a big word in honour of Devon, and deserves all praise from Devonians and Devonian writers therefore: but when he said it had he not forgotten the drizzle,-sempiternal, ubiquitous, closewrapping, penetrative "Devonshire drizzle?"

We fear he had; for in truth that drizzle is a great damper of one's enthusiasm for a Devonshire winter.

"And is it thus,” interrupts some impatient reader, "that you follow the rule you propounded only a month or two back, when you quoted old Burton to the effect that writings, as well as dishes, ought to be seasonable? Is this the season to go rambling, like Dr. Syntax, in search of the picturesque-for I presume Devonia's charms are chiefly of that order?"

Good reader, you are a townsman, (fair reader, we do not suppose you would ask such a question,) or you would not imagine that beautiful Nature is not charming in every season. But we are not going to lead any one on an unseasonable journey. We are about to visit several picturesque and several beautiful spots; but, as you will find, we are going to do so at the very properest time. We intend to lead you on a tour of inspection through the winter watering-places of the southern coast of Devon: and if you think a visit to them at this time of the year unseasonable, why we say it with all respect-you know very little of the subject of this present paper; and there is consequently so much the more need that you should attentively peruse it. Such desirable places are these Devonshire coast towns for a winter visit-or residence, if you can afford it--that not only ought Englishmen to flock to them (as they very prudently do); but Italians themselves would find their advantage in coming hither every winter, where, at the worst, that keen season seems to be " merely a languid spring,"

and

"The chilling blasts forget their freezing power." "From November to February," says a writer on the climate of Italy, "I would recommend an Italian to repair to one of the Devonshire watering-places, if he could possess himself of Fortunatus' cap, to remove the difficulties of the journey:" and he proceeds to set forth the superiority of our coast towns. The quotation is made at second hand (a practice we always reprobate and seldom indulge in); and as the author's name is not given by our authority, we can neither

XIX.-VOL. III.

F

is all around him, wrapping him as in hydropathic blankets, and drawing a sort of duffle-gray curtain before the scenery. However, let us button our coats about us, and start on our journey; we shall find opportunity hereafter to discuss more at leisure both the comforts and discomforts of the climate.

EXETER.

But before we proceed to the coast we must visit the capital of Devon and of the west. Exeter is built upon the summit and sides of a hill, which rises pretty steeply from the left bank of the river Exe. Thomas Fuller thus describes the Exeter of his day: "It is of a circular (and therefore most capable) form, sited on the top of a hill, having an easy ascent on every side thereunto. This conduceth much to the cleanness of this city; Nature being the chief scavenger thereof, so that the rain that falleth there falleth thence by the declivity of the place. The houses stand sideways backward into their yards, and only endways frontward, with their gables towards the street. The city, therefore, is greater in content than appearance, being bigger than it presenteth itself to passengers through the same." This was written about the middle of the seventeenth century, and though the city has altered a good deal since then, it yet, in the middle of the nineteenth, retains sufficient traces of its former features to authenticate the portrait of careful Thomas. It is no longer of a circular form, yet it will be readily seen to have (as Dr. Johnson says of the Highland huts) "some tendency to circularity." The native topographers still dwell with complacency on the cleanliness of their city, promoted, as they say, by its declivitous situation. They speak too daintily to call dame Nature their chief scavenger; and the stranger whose senses

are annoyed by the unsavoury odours and uncleanly sights which far too frequently greet them in the lower parts of the city, is half inclined to fancy that Nature herself has grown ashamed or tired of the occupation imposed upon her. In soberest phrase, the upper and better parts of the city (and they are the greater portion) are clean, pleasant, and healthy; but there are places down by the river that are dirty, wretched, and unwholesome, and that would not long be suffered to remain as they are if they attracted the attention of the authorities as forcibly and as painfully as they do that of the visitor who ventures to perambulate them. Official returns prove satisfactorily that Exeter is, on the whole, above the average of large towns in regard to its healthiness: and there can be little doubt that it would occupy a still more creditable position if some reformation were effected in these lower regions.

Exeter is an ancient city: whether it be as ancient as some who have written concerning it opine, we will not take upon us to affirm or deny. That it existed before Rome was founded may or may not be the fact. If, indeed, it was a city some time before the mighty King Brute laid the first stone of Troynovantum, (which, the reader may remember, was afterwards named Caer Lud, in honour of its second founder the renowned Lud-Hudibras, and is now known as London) as that event happened some two centuries and a half before Romulus saw the twelve vultures fly over the Palatine hill, it is pretty clear that Exeter is of far greater antiquity than Rome; and of antiquity at least as respectable. For historians place the story of Romulus in the class of legends, as well as that of Brute; we need not, therefore, complain if the early history of Exeter range in the same category, or wonder if its origin be for ever lost in the darkness of oblivion.

Coming, then, to authentic history, we find that Exeter was a British city, and was known as Caer-wisc. In the two great Roman Itineraries it is called Isca Dumnoniorum; it was the chief town of the Dumnonii, or people of Devonshire and Cornwall. By the Saxons it was called Exanceaster, whence the present name is derived with less alteration than usually happens in the lapse of so many centuries. In the Domesday Survey' it is written Exonia. The name is derived from its position-Caer-wise is the City on the Wisc. The Romans called the river the Isca; from which the Saxon form Exa is evidently only an adaptation to Saxon organs of speech: ceaster is the usual Saxon corruption of the Latin castra.

Having so sufficiently described its site, illustrated its origin, and accounted for its name, it is imperative upon us to glance at its history-and only glance; for to tell it at length, and as it ought to be told-that is, to relate its regal, military, corporate, and ecclesiastical story; the changes it has witnessed, the sieges it has suffered, and the deeds, worthy and unworthy, that have been performed within it and without it; the glory it has gained and the wrongs it has endured; and all the fortunes and misfortunes of city and citizens, would take up the remainder, not alone of this paper,

but of the volume- and perhaps half-a-dozen more volumes-of this our book. And we find, moreover, that we are already running into unusual and dangerous amplitude of style; we will therefore pull up abruptly, and jog on the remainder of our journey at a safer and more sober pace.

The early history of Exeter is dignified by the defeat of the Danes there, in 877, by the great Alfred, who compelled them to surrender the city, which they had seized, and agree to leave the kingdom. Fifty years later, the Cornwall men (in those days a wild and turbulent race) were driven out of Exeter by Athelstan, who is regarded by Exonians as the founder of the present city. "When he had cleansed this city by purging it of its contaminated race," says William of Malmesbury, "he fortified it with towers and surrounded it with a wall of squared stone. And, though the barren and unfruitful soil can scarcely produce indifferent oats, and frequently only the empty husk without the grain [Devonshire farmers manage to get a very different sort of crop from the vicinity of the city in these days], yet owing to the magnificence of the city, the opulence of its inhabitants, and the constant resort of strangers, every kind of merchandize is here so abundant that nothing is wanting which can conduce to human comfort. Many noble traces of him are to be seen in that city, as well as in the neighbouring district." Malmesbury wrote early in the twelfth century, and probably described the Exeter of his own day: it might very fairly describe the Exeter of ours. It is a favourite notion of the local antiquaries, that there are still, as when Malmesbury wrote, some, though not many, traces of Athelstan to be seen in their city. If the city flourished under the protection of Athelstan, it was less fortunate under his successors. More than once it was plundered by the Danes; but prosperity returned to it, its prosperity being probably a good deal advanced by its being made the seat of an episcopal see in the place of Crediton, by Edward the Confessor.

Exeter was one of the great towns that refused to submit to the Norman Conqueror. William did not direct his steps to the west of England till the year after the battle of Hastings; when he had effectually secured the quiet of the metropolitan and southern counties. The mother of Harold had fled to Exeter with all the wealth she could secure, and her followers and the citizens vowed to resist to the last. They renewed and added to the fortifications; increased the strength of the garrison; hired the seamen, who were with their ships in the port, to assist in the defence of the city and endeavoured to rouse the country around to resist the march of the Conqueror. When William summoned the city to surrender, they replied to him. by a coarse action, which the crafty king, who sought all along to give a colouring of religion to his enterprize, declared was an affront to the Deity which he would avenge; and when a portion of the walls fell down (probably owing to the running of a mine) he called on his army to observe the hand of the Almighty.

Several of the chief citizens went to the king to ask for a truce, which he granted, keeping some of their number as hostages for its observance. When the remainder returned to the city, however, the inhabitants refused to agree to the terms, and prepared to renew the fight. William now directed one of the hostages to be brought close to the walls, where he caused his eyes to be torn out. The inhabitants fought resolutely, but the wall being thrown down, the city was taken after a siege of eighteen days, though not without considerable loss to the victor. Even then the fall of the city was, according to the Saxon Chronicle, partly the result of treachery: "The citizens surrendered their city because the thanes had betrayed them." Harold's mother, Githa, and many of the wives of the citizens had escaped before the surrender: they went, according to the same authority, "to the Steep Holmes, and there abode some time; and afterwards went from thence over sea to St. Omer's." The Domesday Survey shows that forty-eight houses were destroyed in this siege the king however dealt leniently with the people.

In order to hold the inhabitants in check for the future, William built a large and strong castle, which, from the red colour of the hill on which it was erected, he called Rougemont :-a name, the reader of Shakspere will remember, which long after caused Richard III.

to start :

"When last I was at Exeter,

The Mayor, in courtesy, show'd me the Castle, And called it Rouge-mont: at which name I started, Because a bard of Ireland told me once, I should not live long after I saw Richmond."* Rich. III., Act IV., sc. 2. William gave the charge of the castle to Baudoin (or Baldwin) de Brionne, the husband of his niece Albrina, whom he created governor of Devon, and bestowed upon him twenty houses in Exeter, and a hundred and fifty-nine manors in this part of the country. The castle is believed to have been erected on the site of a much older one. It remained in the hands of the descendants of Baudoin till the reign of Henry III., who took the keeping of it into his own control. In the war between Stephen and the Empress Matilda, Exeter embraced the cause of the empress. The castle was strengthened and garrisoned for her by the earl of Devon; and when the king came in person with his army before the city, the inhabitants refused to allow him to enter. The siege lasted for above two months, and the citizens at length yielded rather to the force of hunger than of arms. Matilda remained so great a favourite in Exeter that a festival was for some centuries annually kept in commemoration of her.

We ought perhaps to note here in passing that the * Fuller very reasonably suggests that the wizard, as he

styles the Irish bard, or Satan through him, must have "either spoke this oracle low or lisping, desiring to palliate his fallacy and ignorance; or that King Richard (a guilty conscience will be frighted with little) mistook the word," when the Mayor pronounced it.

city received its first charter from Henry I.; and that John Lackland, in the year 1200, empowered it to elect a mayor and two bailiffs.

The royal visits it received in these earlier days may be passed over-though that of Richard III. be amongst them; and the Black Prince, on his triumphant return from Poictiers, stayed here some days; and Edward I. came hither especially to investigate the particulars of the murder of Walter de Lechlade, the precentor, who was killed on his way from early prayers, when, for their negligence or complicity, in permitting. the murderer to escape, the king caused the mayor and the gate porter to be hung. We may also pass over all its sieges and adventures down to the reign of Henry VII., when one occurs that must be mentioned.

It is that of the unhappy impostor, Perkin Warbeck, who here made his first and most unlucky trial at arms. Hall gives so curious an account of Perkin Warbeck's siege of Exeter, that it may be worth while to quote a portion of it. The first thing after Perkin's landing in Cornwall, says Hall, his councillors advised him to make himself master of some strong walled towns and fortresses, wherein he might entrench himself till his army had sufficiently augmented for him to meet that which might be sent against him. "When he and his council were fully resolved on this point and conclusion, they in good order went straight to Exeter, which was the next city that he could approach to, and besieged it; and because he lacked ordnance to make a battery to raze and deface the walls, he studied all the ways possible how to break and infringe the gates; and what with casting of stones, heaving with iron bars, and kindling of fire under the gates, he omitted nothing which could be devised for the furtherance of his ungracious purpose. The citizens perceiving their town to be environed with enemies and like to be inflamed, began at the first to be sore abashed, and let certain messengers by cords down over the wall, which should certify the king of all their necessity and trouble. But after that, taking to them lusty hearts and manly courages, they determined to repulse fire by fire; and caused faggots to be brought to the inward part of the ports and posterns, and set them all on fire, to the intent that the fire being inflamed on both sides of the gates, might as well exclude their enemies from entering, as include the citizens from running or flying out; and that they in the mean season might make trenches and rampires to defend their enemies instead of gates and bulwarks. Thus all the doings and attempts of the rebellious people had evil success in their first enterprize and thus by fire the city was preserved from flame and burning. Then Perkin being of very necessity compelled to leave the gates, assaulted the town in divers weak and unfortified places, and set up ladders, attempting to climb over the walls and to take the city, thinking surely to compel the citizens either by fear or lack of succour to render themselves and yield the town. But the citizens, nothing so minded, so courageously, like valiant champions, defended the walls, that

at this assault. As soon as the messengers of Exeter came to the king's presence and showed their instructions, he hastened with his host toward Exeter with as much haste as the gravity of the cause did require and expostulate . When Perkin with his lewd captains saw that the city of Exeter was so well fortified both with men and munitions, and of them in manner impregnable, fearing the sequel of this matter, he departed from Exeter with his lousy army to the next great town called Taunton, and there the twentieth day of September he mustered his men as though he were ready to fight, but his number was sore minished. For when the poor and needy people saw the great defence which was made at Exeter, and that no men of honour nor yet of honesty drew to him, contrary to the promise and assurance made by him and his councillors to them at the beginning, they withdrew themselves by sundry secret companies from him, in providing their own safeguard. Which thing when Perkin perceived, he put small trust and less confidence in the remnant of his army, as afterwards did appear, because the most part of his soldiers were harnessed on the right arm and naked all the body, and never exercised in war nor martial feats but only with the spade and shovel." From Taunton, as will be recollected, Perkin took the earliest opportunity to make his escape to a sanctuary; and his army speedily dispersed. "And so," continues the old Chronicler, "the king, being a conqueror without manslaughter or effusion of Christian blood, rode triumphantly into the city of Exeter, and there not only lauded and praised the citizens of Exeter, but also rendered to them his most hearty thanks, as well for their duty done as for their valiantness. And there also he afflicted and put in execution divers Cornishmen which were the authors and stirrers up of this new insurrection and false conspiracy." To mark his sense of the service the city had rendered him, the king presented his own sword to the mayor, and also a cap of maintenance; and directed that they should be carried before him on all occasions of ceremony, in perpetual remembrance of the valour and loyalty of the citizens.

This was not the last occasion on which it successfully withstood a siege. When, in 1549, in consequence of the recent religious changes, occurred what was long remembered as "the Devonshire Commotion," the city was for two months encompassed by the insurgents; and the inhabitants, who resolutely refused to yield, were reduced to the greatest extremities before the siege was raised by a royal army under Lord Russell. It was in reference to these stout defences of the citizens that Elizabeth gave the city its motto, Semper fidelis. It but indifferently supported its loyal character during the "Great Rebellion." On the breaking out of the contest between Charles and the Parliament, the city was occupied by the Earl of Stamford for the Parliament. After the defeat of Stamford in May, 1643, Exeter opened its gates to Prince Maurice, and it continued to be held for the king till April, 1646, when it was

last of its warlike adventures. The Parliament caused the castle to be dismantled and the fortifications to be rendered useless. While the city was occupied by the royalist troops, Queen Henrietta gave birth here to a daughter, afterwards Duchess of Orleans; whose portrait, presented to the city by her brother Charles II., still hangs in the Guildhall.

Three days after his landing at Torbay, the Prince of Orange made a rather pompous entry into Exeter. The following account of the order of the ceremonial, as quoted in one of the guide-books, would contrast rather curiously with that of a military entry of the present day :-"The Earl of Macclesfield, with two hundred noblemen and gentlemen, on Flanders' steeds, completely clothed in armour; two hundred negroes, in attendance on the said gentlemen, with embroidered caps and plumes of white feathers; two hundred Finlanders, clothed in beaver's skins, in black armour, and with broad swords; fifty gentlemen, and as many pages, to attend and support the Prince's standard; fifty led horses trained to war, with two grooms to each; two state coaches; the Prince on a white charger in a complete suit of armour, with white ostrich-feathers in his helmet, and forty-two footmen running by his side; two hundred gentlemen and pages on horseback; three hundred Swiss guards, armed with fusees; five hundred volunteers, with two led horses each; the | Prince's guards, in number six hundred, armed cap-apie; the rest of the army brought up the rear; they had fifty wagons loaded with cash, and one hundred and twenty pieces of cannon."

William's reception in Exeter was rather cold. "The prince," says Bishop Burnet, who accompanied him," made haste to Exeter, where he stayed ten days, both for refreshing his troops, and for giving the country time to show their affections. But the clergy and magistrates of Exeter were very fearful and very backward. The bishop and the dean ran away. And the clergy stood off, though they were sent for, and very gently spoke to by the Prince. . . We stayed a week at Exeter before any gentlemen of the city came about the prince. Every day some person of condition came from other parts."

We will only mention one other royal visit to Exeter that of George III. and his queen, in 1789; and which is now chiefly noteworthy on account of Dr. Walcot, who never lost an opportunity of lampooning that monarch, having celebrated it in a burlesque rhyme, entitled 'The Royal Visit to Exeter, by John Ploughshare.' Walcot was a native of Devonshire; and the verses are written in the Devonshire dialect, of which they are considered a very tolerable example. Two or three stanzas will show its quality, and the nature of Devonshire speech-now losing a little of its rudeness, at least in this part of the county:

"Leek bullocks sting'd by appledranes Currantin it about the lanes,

Vokes this way dreav'd and that;